Today's Readings

We celebrate the birth of Jesus. The Almighty comes to us as a baby. Born to a small, loving couple who believed, wholeheartedly in the promise He brings. Jesus who not only embodies love but IS love itself.

We gather together to celebrate with family. As a family, spread throughout the world. Family can bring up a lot of different emotions, memories or experiences for each of us. We may even have different definitions of family – whether it be our extended family, a found family, a welcoming community, some friendly faces, etc. We can celebrate family, in all its’ variations, today as we commemorate the birth of the Holy Family.

Jesus unites all of us to Him. He unites all of us in celebration today. There is no family without love; therefore, Jesus joins us all together as a family. We are united by love. A love that transforms hearts and minds. A love that heals brokenness. A perfect and eternal love.

The power of family and the power of love are one and the same. Love unites. Love uplifts. Love overcomes. There is no room for intolerance, isolation, or “other” in love, because God is love, and His love is as inclusive as it is vast. We are all called to love one another as Jesus loves us. (John 15:12) Sometimes Christmas can be a painful time of year yet, even in suffering, there is the promise of life and love as loud as a baby’s cry, as infectious as a baby’s laughter.

Jesus comes to share this life with us and lived among us as a human being. The Word became flesh and became human. God is human. Jesus, yesterday, today and tomorrow will always be human. He is the destiny, the standard and the means for us to be human. There’s a lot more that can be said about this, but ultimately, Christmas is an invitation to know and to love Him, to know and love the best we can become.

Christmas is a perfect day to recognize that God not only became man, but a tiny baby. Today is the celebration of his birthday. Who doesn’t love celebrating a birthday? The best birthdays are celebrated surrounded by loved ones. You are a loved one to God. We all are.

May we be merry, even giddy. May today be filled to the brim, overflowing with joy and abounding love. May we be united in celebration of God’s love. May we carry this celebration of love into the next day and the next.

From all of us here at the United States Catholic Mission Association:Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

Advent: A Time to Prepare

by Dr. Don McCrabb, 12/19/18

This word, "prepare," conjures up so many images. I see my Mom cleaning the house - and corralling us kids to help. I remember my Dad bringing in the Christmas tree and digging out the lights and ornaments buried in some box in the basement. There were smells that came from the kitchen as cookies, and brown bread, and the turkey were being cooked.

There are other - less seasonal images - that also come to mind. The daily moment when I sit down to create my list for the day. The internet search for summer camps, vacation possibilities, and an old, discontinued, door knob for the bathroom door.

Advent magnifies and appropriates preparation as a perennial characteristic of the spirituality of mission. Advent is the BIG prepare - like preparing for college, getting married, a profession in medicine, adoption, or the birth of a child. It is so much more than sweeping the floor but sweeping the floor is part of it.

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us today that "sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me." Here is the catch. God does not want us to suffer, he does not want us to sacrifice those things, experiences, activities that are most precious to us. God does not want us to surrender anything that we love, that enriches our life, that makes life fun and meaningful. No, God longs to be born in us, in our flesh, in our person.

Some of our preparation may feel like sacrifice, may look like an offering, but it is really making space - making room - so there is room in our heart, mind, soul and strength for Jesus.

All the themes of this season of longing come together this Sunday - watching, waiting, expecting, and preparing.

Elizabeth longed for a child her whole life - way past the normal age for child bearing. She watched for the signs of her deliverance. She waited with a patience that even Job would admire. And she expected, as she looked to the horizon, for Mary, "the mother of my Lord" to arrive. All while preparing for the birth of her own son, John, "the greatest among those born of women."

Advent is a time of preparation - the biggest of the BIG preparations. We prepare to welcome Jesus and Jesus prepares us for his coming this Christmas, every Christmas, the moment of the incarnation that is buried in the nooks and crannies of daily life.

Okay. Now let me make my list, find that broom, and start baking those cookies. And let me be sure this Christmas to encounter one stranger and have their well being as my only motivation.

Advent: Expect more, Demand less, Rejoice always

These expectations become longings that settle deep within and overwhelm us. They can make us desperate, or impatient, or both. We grab and go or demand and bout; we stand before our longings defiantly, awaiting everything we want and then some, or we swoop in to snatch everything we can before scurrying back to the fortress we have built.

We become haves or have nots. Then John came. But his blessing was too small, and his penance was too big. There is another way - expect more, demand less, rejoice always.

These longings themselves, the poverty we feel, is itself a blessing. Greedy hearts are born from fear, frozen hearts from hurt. Only broken hearts are open enough to see more and expect more.

Broken hearts, the poor in spirit, can see the inexhaustible abundance starring us in the face. Suffering is not the problem, it’s the path to holiness. Our salvation, our completeness, our union with God, is already here. John found it in the desert and in the waters of the Jordan, we can find it in mission.

Expecting more - of ourselves, of others, even of God - will cause us to suffer. That suffering will burn away our pettiness, selfishness, and smallness revealing a blessing beyond all measure and understanding. And we can hold it, cradle it lightly, like a new born baby in our arms, and surrender ourselves completely to its only demand - love.

“i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.” (E.E. Cummings).

Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice!

Spiritual Growth. Community. Simple Living. Social Justice.

These are the four pillars of faith-based service. The 2018 Advent Reflection Guide, co-sponsored by the Catholic Volunteer Network and the Catholic Apostolate Center offers missionary reflections from current and former missioners reflection on this year's Advent Gospels. Check it out now.

Advent: A Time to Wait

By Don McCrabb, 12/7/18

Why wait?

Waiting as an experience can be very unnerving. Conceptually, it’s suspended anticipation, no? Still, I find I am usually pretty good at waiting. Sometimes, I can even find it enjoyable. Waiting for guests to arrive is quite enjoyable because the night will be filled with joy and laughter. Other times, it is just plain maddening. Sitting in traffic on the way home feels like time slows down, making the commute longer.

As we enter this second week of Advent, it is important to ponder the spiritual meaning of waiting. Sunday’s Gospel makes an outrageous claim – “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Something unthinkable is unfolding before our very eyes, like flowers emerging from a cold, grey, winter, and we must “wait for it.” This is not fidgeting at the stop light or fighting the irritation rising within you because the person ahead of you is “so slow.” This is pregnancy. It is the “already but not yet” of our spirituality that is tenaciously drawn to flesh, with all its weakness and vulnerability, rather than a moral principle, a political ideology, or disembodied knowledge.

All flesh shall see - touch, taste, hear, smell - salvation because salvation shows up in the flesh. When we believe this, we can live this and speak this because we are missionaries giving witness to the reign of God’s justice and mercy.

Advent gives us a moment, a pregnancy, a suspended anticipation to consider how we see one another. Can we apply the same care and love to “all flesh,” or do we limit ourselves to just our loved ones? Everyone needs compassion.

We need to examine how we view others and ask: Am I seeing a person as they are, or just their moral failure? Am I using labels to pigeonhole a person into a category, whether it be “undocumented,” “progressive,” “criminal”? Am I judging others based on where they went to school, their level of expertise, or their economic success?

The Messiah is coming - indeed he is already here among us – and he will break down all the walls, labels, and prisons we keep making. He is coming to set us free and we “can’t wait” to meet him.

Welcome to Advent

by: Dr. Don McCrabb, 11/30/18

I watch a lot. I watch wrong.

Like a lot of us, I spend way too much time with my head down, watching stuff (some might say junk) flicker across a screen that I hold in my hand. It could be my news feed, emails, Netflix, Facebook, or Linked In (just cannot get the hang of Twitter).

Eventually, I lift my head up long enough to say hello to my wife and kids, or colleagues at work, or begin work on a much larger screen with documents, emails, video calls, and calendars. Sometimes, I even put all the screens away and notice the people driving by, or walking down the street, or riding the Metro with me. I love it when I catch kids playing. From time to time, I even notice the brilliance of a full moon or the yellow-orange splash of trees surrendering to autumn.

None of this is the watching of Advent.

Advent beckons us to look beyond what is in front of us. We are to look beyond our lives. Indeed, we are to look beyond the headlines and the ebb and flow of human history. We are to even look beyond the certainty of creation. Advent awakens us to what God has done, is doing, and will do.

As missionaries, we are called to notice everything and to hold the truth of the world – with its breathtaking beauty as well as its grotesque evils – in our hearts and minds and respond to all of it with the love of God.

The world is changing right before our eyes. There are more people on the planet than ever before in human history. And more people are on the move than ever before. Humanity has become a force of nature that is now – due to our reckless consumption of fossil fuels and other natural resources – threatening the well-being of our planet that sustains all life.

In today’s Gospel we hear “on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves” and we are called to be “vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Missionaries are called to witness – in word and deed – the saving love of God. We are also called to witness to the groaning of creation, the suffering of the poor, the dehumanization of large groups of people because Jesus is there, with them.

We are called to lift our heads up, put down our devices and distractions, and watch the world as it is and see how God wants it to be. Feeling in our bones that tension – between what is and what should be – creates a deep longing in our soul. Welcome to Advent.

Christ the unKing

by: Fr. Bill Vox

Our end-of-the-year feast, Christ the King, is an opportunity to reflect and peel back the layers of what goes into “kingship,” for better or worse: those things that are appropriate and praiseworthy as well as the truly un-Christlike and how they might relate to the current crisis in the Church.

Historically, at least a bit of the disease that has infected our global institution came from the civic relationships our Church has had, over many centuries, with secular, dominant European powers, in particular royalty and their kingdoms.